Kasparov-Marcote clinch Spanish title

Escuela International Kasparov Marcote won the Spanish Team Championship. In the final the top seeded team defeated reigning champions Linex-Magic from Mérida 4.5-1.5 with victories for Gashimov against Shirov, Smeets against Sargissian and and Salgado against Pérez Candelario.

Gustafsson, Smeets, Vallejo (and Gashimov) | Photo © FEDA

The 2010 Spanish Team Championship took place August 23-28 in the Polideportivo La Benedicta sports complex in Sestao in Northern Spain. Spain's top ten teams, the División de Honor, competed over six rounds in this stage. The time control was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 30 minutes for the rest of the game with a 30 second increment from move 1.

In a newly introduced system, the teams started with four rounds of Swiss. Then the first four teams play semi-finals and the winners played a final to decide the champion.

Spanish Team Ch 2010 | Teams & Players

Semi-finals and final

Having secured a place in the semi-finals with six draws on Thursday, the teams of Solvay and Linex-Magic met each other again the next day. Again, five out of six games ended peacefully but this time the players did fight. The decisive game was Negi-Sargissian, where the Armenian won with Black in a Spanish Four Knights and thus made sure that his team was still champion of Spain for at least one more day.

Negi-Sargissian Sestao 2010 In an already slightly worse position, Negi committed a tactical error with the natural looking 25.h3? which was refuted by 25...Rxf3! 26.gxf3 (if White takes with the rook there's a nasty Bf2 at the end) 26...Bxh3 and Black won.


Reverté Albox vs Kasparov Marcote finished in 3-3. Especially board one was a short affair, where Dreev and Gashimov drew in 12 which gave them time to visit the Henri Rousseau exhibition at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, or something else. Krasenkow, who had suffered a lost by default the day before against the same opponent because of back problems (as Vallejo told us), turned up this time and the two drew in 67 moves in an interesting Sveshnikov.

The other teams also continued playing, eventually to determine which teams would relegate. Another down side of the new system in use in Spain was that e.g. Sestao Naturgas played U.G.A. for the second time. This time they beat them with a bigger margin: 5-1. Hikaru Nakamura even played the same player, and again with the white pieces! He told us he didn't want to prepare again, started with 1.g3 and beat Daniel Elsina Leal the second time in one week.

To the final then. There was no doubt who was the strongest in the match between Linex-Magic and Kasparov Marcote, as the latter won their three black games and drew their three white ones. On board one the Petroff Defence once again turned out to be an opening in which Black can win too.

Shirov-Gashimov Sestao 2010 38.Nc1? Too passive; 38.Qa4! keeping an eye on the e8, c2 and d1 squares was about equal. 38...Be4! 39.Bg4 Ne5 and White couldn't prevent the loss of a pawn, and the game.


Smeets beat Sargissian in an instructive ending.

Sargissian-Smeets Sestao 2010 Which is better, the bishop or the knight? Usually it's the bishop, but not this time. 45...e4! 46.Bd1 g4! Black puts the pawns on the colour of the bishop, but this is a second exception to the rule. Here it restricts the bishop and fixes the pawn on f2, which will fall at some point. See the game viewer for the rest of the game.


Besides Kasparov Marcote, Linex-Magic, Reverté Albox and Solvay, the teams Sestao Naturgas and Gros X.T. will play the Division Honor also next year, while Mérida Patrimonio, SCC Sabadell, C.E. Barbera and U.G.A. have relegated.

Games rounds 5-6

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Photos © FEDA

Links

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